


The Book of the Duplicitous Dead

by Harukami



Category: The Bone Key - Sarah Monette
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-24
Updated: 2016-12-24
Packaged: 2018-09-11 14:57:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8990365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Harukami/pseuds/Harukami
Summary: In which Booth finds out what's haunting the stacks of the Samuel Mather Parrington Museum after dark, and is tempted by what it has to offer.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [feverbeats](https://archiveofourown.org/users/feverbeats/gifts).



The lock didn't work. 

This would have hypothetically been fine if it didn't work in the right _way_. That is to say, had the lock jammed open, I'd certainly have to deal with Dr. Starkweather accusing me of negligence, but it would be the better option.

Of course it jammed locked instead. Of course.

I rattled the knob, twisted and slammed my shoulder into it, and, eventually entirely foregoing what little dignity I had, I hammered my hand on the door and shouted. As it was still 5:30 in the evening, there _should_ have still been people around to hear me, and I needed to be found as soon as possible.

But nobody came. It seemed impossible that nobody would be walking past for that long, especially when six passed. The closing of the museum meant that the watchmen did their first rounds to confirm the doors were locked. I leaned against the cold door and listened intently for them to come here, for the knob to rattle—but that did not happen either.

I had entered the stacks to do some research—trying to find the estate donations from the Parrington's archivist of thirty years ago, J. Carver. Said donation had been lost and entirely unnoted; we had only learned of it by finding a mention left in an old museum log. I had fully intended to be _out_ of the stacks long before the museum closed, as there was no bribe large enough to keep me in them willingly after dark.

I double-checked my watch. Six had come and gone and it was approaching six-thirty. My throat, unaccustomed to making much sound at all, was feeling raw and sore. I sank down on the landing, my back against the cold metal door, and tried to count to ten silently to calm myself. It didn't work; nor did twenty, thirty, or forty. I hadn't really expected they would.

There was nothing to do about it, I told myself firmly. I was stuck in the stacks and all I could do was listen for the night watchmen and remember not to move from the spot. The story of the junior archivist who fell on the stairs and wasn't found until several days later was fresh in my mind. I would stay in one place to avoid the same danger, and besides, several people knew I intended to be working down here. When I didn't show up in my office tomorrow, they'd check here first.

But falling wasn't the real danger of the stacks.

It wasn't quite seven when I started to hear the footsteps—not the blessed sound of either Mr. Fiske or Mr. Hobden passing by outside, but instead a casual, unhurried walk along the floor immediately below mine. I believe I stopped breathing for a moment, as if whoever— _what_ ever—it was would be able to hear the sound. In truth, it wouldn't matter if they could. I had the light on for my level, because the idea of sitting alone in the dark at the top of deadly stairs was too abominable for me to even contemplate. 

The thing that lived in the stacks after hours already knew I was here.

The footsteps stopped abruptly, and the light on the level below mine went on. I pressed my back against the door more firmly, my feet splayed on the floor as though I could ground myself in reality through effort alone. 

The light stayed on for a while in silence, while I pretended that I was, as I wished, anywhere but here. When it went out, it went out so suddenly that despite my best efforts, I let out a horrified wheeze of breath.

A tapping began, a light _ting ting ting_ of fingertips running along the metal grating of the rail and coming up the steps. I clutched a hand over my heart as if I could silence its sound, staring at the dimness of the stairs as the light of my landing failed to fully penetrate the darkness, trying to see what was approaching me.

The light went out, leaving me in total darkness. Footsteps began again, accompanying that metallic tapping, approaching me.

I could understand how someone could fall down the stairs, even ignoring how steep it was. I felt completely cornered, with the solid door behind me and something nearing me in the terrible darkness. My heartbeat was a relentless pendulum, my breath something tearing through my throat. The urge to break for the stairs to hope I could bypass the creature entirely was a terrible, deadly temptation.

Instead I rose and began hammering on the door once more. The skin of my back crawled as I rattled the doorknob and pounded frantically. I didn't dare turn, and couldn't see in the darkness even if I did. It could be inches from me right now, fingertips tracing my spine lightly enough that it felt like my own chills.

The doorknob turned in my hand with a jolt, and it was open, the light of Mr. Hobden's flashlight pouring in at me. "Mr. Booth?" he asked, startled. "What are you doing here this late?

I don't remember what I babbled at him in excuse. I'm sure it was the basic details only: the lock jammed, the light went out. He promised to have Mr. Bates look at the lock, I remember that much. I suggested he do it first thing in the morning rather than bothering the man now. It wouldn't be needed this night, anyway. He gave me an odd look when he agreed. Certainly, I must have sounded like a madman even if I withheld the more superstitious details.

The rest of the night was spent on the comfort of my office sofa. The aftermath of fear was exhaustion, and while I didn't feel any more like sleeping than usual, I also didn't feel up to the walk home. I curled up and read until I fell into an uneasy rest.

***

Of course, I had to go back the next day.

I hardly _wished_ to return to the stacks—I could think of hundreds of things I would rather do. But the work still needed to be completed. I checked the lock dozens of times before I actually shut the door behind me, then immediately checked it again; each time it moved smoothly, as if well-oiled. It probably had been, I reminded myself. It had been repaired, and would not fail me again. Nor would I stay too late regardless.

And thankfully, my research this time turned out well. Carver's personal donation had not only gotten lost, but so had the ledger that accompanied it that would detail what it had consisted of. Most archivists have large personal libraries, so I had assumed I would be looking for at least a small booklet; there was no reason for a man like Carver, who had died as wifeless and childless as I myself will, not to leave everything to the museum.

But what I found, having slipped from the shelves where Carver's items should have been and gotten caught in the pages of a volume below, was a single index card with only one entry on it: J. Carver, donation upon death: 1 copy, and then the title of the book. Knowing what I know now, I don't wish to name this book, as the archivist after myself will likely go through these diaries (a duty I do not envy him or her).

This named book, mind, was not with the index card, nor was it anywhere near where Carver's books should be. I assumed it had gotten separated from its remarkably tiny donation ledger, and would be among the unknowns, so, as the afternoon was wearing on and I did not wish to risk being caught after hours again, I pocketed the card and returned up the stairs to the entrance.

The lock was jammed.

It should not have been possible, and yet I felt absolutely no surprise at this turn of affairs—simply a helplessly-sinking heart as I rattled the knob. Even though I had tested it endlessly, it seemed inevitable. I imagined something passing me silently and invisibly as I had examined the area of Carver's empty section for hints, climbing the stairs to the landing and in some way preventing the lock from turning. 

Still, I tried to leave. In the same way as before, I called out, shook the knob, tried to force the key until I feared I'd break it. And in the same way as before, it seemed nobody heard, even though by rights there should be people around at this time.

Whatever was here must have released me at the last moment last night. It should have been a comforting thought, but only made it more incomprehensible to me, and that in itself made me more afraid. Still, some part of the inevitability calmed me even as it increased my fear. I turned to face the stairwell and called out, "Are you there? Show yourself...!"

There was no answer. But in retrospect, there wouldn't be. Whatever it was that was down here only seemed to become active and powerful when the museum closed.

I waited. I didn't wait boldly, or with any anticipation, and I still tried the door regularly, and listened for anyone passing by, but I waited now nonetheless rather than truly trying to escape.

Six o'clock passed. I considered turning the lights on my landing out in case that would make it easier for whatever it was to show up—and whether that would be to my advantage or not—but decided to leave them on. Assuming it wanted help, and that was why it released me when I was afraid yesterday, I wouldn't be able to help it if I fell on the stairs and broke my neck. And besides, I found the light comforting, a touchstone to reality and a hope of return to the normal.

A light flickered somewhere below, and those unhurried footsteps began once more. The hair on the back of my neck rose and I clenched and unclenched my fists to force heat into my now-bloodless fingers.

"Are you there?" I called again.

I wasn't expecting an answer: "John? Is that you?"

The voice was sweet and melodic, and probably masculine, though just high enough that I wasn't sure: a low alto, a high tenor. It neither sounded like what I imagined a horror of the darkness to sound like, nor did it sound actually human, even though the only terms I have to describe it are inherently so. There was something wrong in the timbre of it, though, aside from all other descriptions I can give it, something that sounded more like mimicry than an actual human voice. Like the surprise one feels when a bird uses human words, though that doesn't do the uncanny feeling justice.

I was shocked into silence. There was the _ting ting ting_ of fingertips dragging along metal bars as it approached from the darkened stairwell. The voice came again. "John? Is that you?"

It was said exactly the same way as it had been the first time: the same tone, the same inflection, as though it wasn't spoken newly but just echoed. I cleared my horribly dry throat and answered, "No. My name is Booth. Er. Kyle Murchison Booth."

"Booth," the voice answered. The light on my landing went out. I froze in place, my back to the door. It had said my name in the exact way I did, though in that strange not-quite-right voice it had.

"I, er, I am the head archivist here at the Parrington," I said uselessly. Surely whatever it was knew that. I had worked down there so often. "What do you want?"

"Want?" it echoed back.

"Please turn the light on," I croaked.

I didn't expect it to work, but a moment later, the lights—all of them, every one in the stacks at once—came on to reveal a man standing in front of me.

I only saw what it looked like for a moment. It had black hair and hollow eyes, with that wreathe of darkness around them that I've come to associate with the living dead. It was not too tall nor too short—which is to say, it was shorter than I, but not unreasonably so. "Yes," it said, and I desperately tried to think of when I could have said that word in here, because it too sounded like an echo, a mimicry. It kept speaking, though, things that I, at least, wouldn't have said. "I turned them on. Is that better?"

The creature seemed to be waiting for a response. "Yes," I said weakly. "Thank you." 

"You're not John," it said. 

And before I could agree, before I could say anything, it warped. First it went faceless entirely, all features going smooth and blank and empty, and then I was looking at my own face. Flipped, like a photograph, so it must have been a direct copy rather than a mirror reflection. And like a photograph, it seemed odd-looking even to myself. 

But myself nonetheless, with my shock of white hair, my craggy cheekbones, the exaggerated softness of my mouth. I realized at that moment we were now standing eye to eye, the creature's still with that unpleasantly dead look. 

"Kyle," it said. 

Hearing that gave me a shock, not least because I could not remember the last time someone had called me by my given name. But it was also speaking in my voice now, though not _quite_ my voice. In truth, hearing my voice from the outside means I can't be quite sure of the differences, with the pitch and depth inside meaning nobody hears me the way I hear me. But it felt wrong, off. Unreal. 

Still: "Yes," I managed. "What do you want?"

"I want John," it said, and it approached me. There was nowhere for me to go, and I wasn't sure yet if I should attack—or how it would be effective if I did try to fight. Its arms came down on either side of me, pinning me back against the door with my own body. "He left me here. He was supposed to change so we would be together."

"I," I began, and swallowed. The thing's familiar body was pressed to mine almost intimately, forearms braced on the door, forehead leaning against mine, so I was breathing its breath with my own panic-fast inhalations. My chest, likewise, rising and falling was bumping its own, which was still except, it seemed, when it spoke. "Change how?"

"Into readable flesh," it said. "He wrote the words down in my pages so that he too would become a copy of me."

I wanted to lick my dry lips but was afraid I would lick my copy's instead; it was that close. The whole thing felt like a parody of intimacy, a near-erotic embrace, and that thought was strangely unbearable. "Doppleganger."

"Yes," it said. It smiled. The look was utterly unfamiliar on my face. "I am a copied text, and he promised to make his flesh into my pages and his heart into my words. I am the omen of his death and he embraced me as such. I am part of him and he is part of me and I love him. But he never came here."

I turned my face away. Despite everything, and to my utter horror, my body was reacting to that warmth and pressure against me. It seemed to notice and like that, shifting against my body, a leg pinning me to the wall as well as its arms, so I was bracketed in. "I'm not John," I said.

"You are lonely," it said. "You are alone."

I swallowed the lump that threatened my words. "I am not John," I repeated.

"John abandoned me, didn't he?"

Somehow, that hurt worse than what it had been saying before, even though it wasn't aimed at me. Perhaps it was just those words in a voice so close to mine, but so sad abruptly, so lonely. I closed my eyes. "I suppose he did," I said. "What was he supposed to do?"

"He will become like me," it said. "He was supposed to be shelved with me, and over time, I would take his pages into myself and become greater for it. And he would become greater for it." Despite the words, there was no egotism in the tone, simply longing. "And over time we would find more who would want to become copies, and we would overwrite them, and they would overwrite us."

I said nothing, trying to catch my breath, trying to think, around the horror in my chest. And— 

"Oh," the doppleganger said.

I refused to speak, almost biting my tongue against whatever wanted to come out, because I didn't know what I'd say if I allowed myself words.

"Oh, you like that," the doppleganger said. The wrongness of my voice was pleased now—no, not pleased. _Relieved._ "Is that what you would like? Not to be alone even to the end, not to be alone even into the grave but to emerge from it as something more, something shared, something that will always be someone?"

I opened my mouth, and it took advantage of the moment to kiss me.

Its mouth was soft on mine, warm—hot, almost—and completely flavorless, as if either it tasted of nothing or as if it was mimicking my own flavor so perfectly that my mouth itself couldn't detect a difference. It sent a shock through me, arousal and something else, because I had never been kissed before, but it felt familiar, an echo of something I couldn't place. 

I wanted it. It kissed me like it already loved me, and I wanted it.

I pushed it away.

The lights around us flickered and its footsteps were unnaturally loud on the floor as it took two steps back with the force of my shove. It seemed flushed slightly, the first color I saw on my copied face, and I wondered if I, too, were blushing. "I'm not John," I said again, weak.

"No. You're Kyle."

"Don't call me that," I said. I reached behind me, and found the doorknob. "Let me go."

"But—"

"I'll find out why John didn't go with you," I said roughly. "I can't promise to reunite you if I found that he changed his mind. But if he had meant to be with you, I'll try to get you back to him."

Its flushed lips parted. "He promised me."

"He has the right to change his mind," I said, and heard it come out too forcefully.

For a long moment, the doppleganger was silent. Then: "Take me with you," it said. "I'm here because an archivist put me here. I belong with an archivist. I can leave if you will take me. But I can't leave on my own."

"I, I can't go walking around with a duplicate of myself," I stammered incredulously.

It just looked at me with those strange, dark eyes in my strange face, and then it seemed to fall. What landed on the ground was a book, fat with pages, leather cover worn with use. I stared at it for a few long moments, reluctant to handle it, but it was no longer speaking or moving. It looked like any book that could have fallen off the shelves in the stacks.

Slowly, I bent down and picked it up. It was cool in my hand, and the leather was hide of some kind. I was fairly sure I knew what sort.

The title was the one the one the ledger card had listed as Carver's donation.

***

I had already been planning to contact the estate for more details in case they could provide insight on the supposedly-missing book, although Carver's time with the museum had been long enough ago that I hadn't had much hope of hearing more. That would likely still have been the case if it weren't that he was actually quite memorable to his grandchildren.

"Oh, Granddad was crazy," Mary Dodger _née_ Carver told me cheerfully. She was standing too close and I took a surreptitious step backward, trying not to feel the weight of the doppleganger book—or dopplegrimoire, as I'd begun to mentally refer to it—in my bag. "He asked not to be buried or cremated. He wanted his body to be donated to the museum as a book, if you can believe such a thing."

"Ah," I said. "Er."

She nodded, taking my awkwardness as shock. "More to the point, he believed he'd turn into one if his corpse was left alone. We still laugh about it a little at family gatherings, though it's really quite sad. Probably spent too much time around books in his work—er, no offence meant, Mr. Booth."

"None, er, taken," I said. I wasn't entirely sure she was wrong; I'd been tempted, after all. "But of course this didn't happen. I mean, that's, er, impossible."

"Heavens, no. His siblings were horrified at what he was doing to the family. A funeral's for the survivors, you know, not the dead. They all felt a little awkward disrespecting his last wishes, but there you go."

The weight in my bag was starting to feel heavier, though I couldn't say if it were my imagination or not. "Ah, and, er, which was it? Burial or cremation?"

"Oh, burial," she said. "Family plot. Why do you ask?"

I winced. "It's, er, you know, curious story. So I was, ah, just... curious." 

"Oh, quite curious," she agreed. "At any rate, that one book was the only one we donated as an estate donation. From what Father told me, he'd passed all the others off into the Parrington library during his own time working there, so that'd likely be why you didn't see more on the donation list." 

"He got rid of the rest of his books while still alive?" I asked, shocked.

"Apparently he said that one book was the only one he needed," Miss Dodger said. Then, more thoughtfully, "Although that sort of thing really does get exaggerated by family legend. You know how it is."

None of the terrible exaggerations of my own family's legends had turned out to be exaggerations at all. "Yes," I said. "Of course."

***

Which led to me digging up a grave in the middle of the night. I sorely wished it were the first time I'd done such a thing.

Still, some hard and determined work eventually unveiled the coffin of Jonathan Carver, and a crowbar did the rest of the job. I winced as I pried off the lid, and looked in with more than a little trepidation.

But what was inside wasn't a corpse, weathered by the years and insects, but instead a book. A perfect copy of the one in my bag.

—The one no longer in my bag, rather. I had put it down to dig, so hadn't noticed how long the dopplegrimoire had been in its inaccurately human form behind me, but as I turned to glance back at the bag, there it was. It had taken on my shape again, and I shuddered to see the near-likeness of my face light up in lovestruck joy.

"John," it said. "John, there you are."

It knelt in the disturbed grave dirt next to the coffin, reaching its hands in and running them tenderly over the spine, the cover, the text of the title which matched its own. "I'll take you now," it breathed, some gentle intimacy and terrible horror both in the same phrase. "I'll teach you to become me."

I must have made some sound, because it remembered I was there, and glanced up at me again. It smiled with my mouth, that same unfamiliar expression as before. "Kyle," it said. "You could join us."

"Er," I said.

It laughed, and the sound wasn't pleasant, but was coaxing. "Surely you would like to be something more," it offered. "Never alone. Surely, Booth."

I remembered the physicality of its offer from before, the sensation of its mouth on mine, and swallowed. My heart was beating too fast. "No," I said, lying. "I don't."

"Ahhh," it sighed. "Consider it. I'll transform back to absorb John into me so he can gain my knowledge properly. Right now, he's confined to this form. I'll need to teach him properly. But take us back with you, and when we have become one volume, I will ask you again."

"My answer, er. It won't... it won't change," I said. I could hear the temptation in my voice, and it could, too. 

It smiled up at me. "You have some life left in you," it said. "Keep us until the end, and then answer us."

And then it was a mimicry of a person no longer, but a book again, fallen on top of the other like a two-volume set. I stared at them in the coffin. It was true that I could easily pack them up and go, and keep the offer open indefinitely..

I put the lid onto the coffin and tipped it carefully back into the grave. There was no protest from inside as I began to shovel the dirt back on; perhaps, in its book form, it could not hear or see. Perhaps it was simply too absorbed in reuniting with Carver. Perhaps it—or some part of it that had once been one of the people it had taken— _wanted_ to be trapped there. 

I wondered how many others it had eaten, had absorbed into its consciousness, before it found Carver. I wondered how many others would have been eaten after me if I had taken its offer. It was best kept safe away from the public. They would be together, as Carver had wanted, and I had promised nothing more.

It was too dangerous to leave out where others could find it. 

After all, I knew without a doubt that I would have accepted its offer, had it worn any face but my own.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, friend! I saw that you were requesting the Bone Key and couldn't possibly resist writing this as a Treat for you. I hope you have a wonderful Yuletide 2016 and Happy Holidays!


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